Lots of Articles Now With Zero Daily Views

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   eugbugposted 10 months ago

   Traffic has fallen to maybe 20% of what it was. Now I have loads of articles with zero daily views. Am I going to be penalised by HP and have them shifted to Discover, not because it's my fault, but because the sites are badly rated by Google now?

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      jansharesposted 10 months agoin reply to this

      I have 11 out of 109 articles with zero daily views. I think that's expected. I recall some time ago hearing that if you have articles with zero views in consecutive 30-day periods, then you're article is at risk for being "unfeatured," which was the term back then. Now I guess the phrase is "demoted back to Discovery HP." I have 2 articles that have had zero views in 30 days.

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         eugbugposted 10 months agoin reply to this

         I don't see the point in demoting them. Then they get even less views. If that happens, I'll just take them off the site. I've done that already with ones they moved back.

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         jansharesposted 9 months agoin reply to this

         The zeros have quadrupled today. Maybe I didn't count right yesterday. But I don't think so.

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            eugbugposted 9 months agoin reply to this

            It's like we've reached the event horizon and are now spiralling into the centre of the black hole.

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      WriterJanisposted 9 months agoin reply to this

      The traffic for my articles has also dropped. I have several that are getting 0 views. I'm also making less money each month even though I have had an increase in published articles. Sigh.......

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      chef-de-jourposted 9 months agoin reply to this

      Isn't it time for a complete overhaul of the HP model? Get some fresh techno minds in to start from scratch, blank sheet and all that, roots and branch, on and on from January 2024.
      
      The new TAG CEO has timed it perfectly.

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         PaulGoodman67posted 9 months agoin reply to this

         The "new CEO" is in an interim position from what I've read. That means, I believe, they're essentially in a caretaker role until the post is filled long-term. I think that makes it unlikely that there will be any major changes in the near future.

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            chef-de-jourposted 9 months agoin reply to this

            Yes, I see that too but he's had a majority stake in Levinsohn's company since August 2023 so I guess he's half-serious about boosting TAG's tarnished name. He has an interesting background, not your average CEO if his bio is anything to go by.
            
            He has two basic aims, to “improve the operational efficiency and revenue of the company" - haha - starting with HP (in our dreams).

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            SerenityHaloposted 9 months agoin reply to this

            I stepped away from the forums for a couple of weeks, and I feel I have missed some fascinating news. I'm excited for new leadership. Sometimes an interim person ends up becoming the official one.

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      phillippeengelposted 9 months agoin reply to this

      Google recently unleashed a fresh wave of algorithm updates (October and November core update), and organic SEO is definitely feeling the heat.
      
      That means our articles, (and mine too!), are facing a tougher climb to the top of search results.
      
      Remember, the internet is a playground, and Google is the slightly creepy park ranger who keeps changing the rules.

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         SerenityHaloposted 9 months agoin reply to this

         The slightly creepy park ranger! That's hilarious.

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      Thelma Albertsposted 9 months agoin reply to this

      The same with my articles. I have a lot of 0 views. Very demotivating.

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      NateB11posted 9 months agoin reply to this

      I haven't been on here in a long time so not sure what my views have been but I do know I'm well below the threshold for payout, and I don't think that's happened for some time. Didn't know there was a new CEO too. Let's see how this goes.

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   PaulGoodman67posted 9 months ago

   Yes, it's very dispiriting.
   
   I used to weed out articles myself that had very low views. Consequently, I didn't have that many poor performers.
   
   However, now I have lots of hubs with 0-10 daily views and only a few good performers on each of my accounts.
   
   I was thinking along the same lines as you. HP might end up kicking articles to Discover that not that long ago were doing reasonably well.
   
   I mean, I understand HP's logic. As they can't edit everything, it's best to focus on improving the high performers and reducing the amount of stuff that Google appears to dislike in a niche.
   
   But it becomes grim when traffic is falling relentlessly.

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      PaulGoodman67posted 9 months agoin reply to this

      My traffic dropped again recently. I'm hoping it will be temporary.
      
      According to SE Roundtable, the Google ranking volatility started at the end of November and hasn't quit since.
      
      It's not even clear what's causing the volatility as no new updates have been announced.

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         eugbugposted 9 months agoin reply to this

         Mine is down too, another 20% or so. It's probably at its lowest now than it's ever been.

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            PaulGoodman67posted 9 months agoin reply to this

            I don't think there's much "probably" about it for me.
            
            There's very little that bucks the trend. In the past, I saw what worked and ran with that but there don't seem to be any veins to mine nowadays. Pretty much everything is doing badly. I don't even get much of an Amazon boost at Xmas anymore.
            
            The bumping stuff out of the niches to Discover has a logic. It's reasonable to assume that a large share of the stuff that's doing the worst is disliked by Google for some reason.
            
            The logic is that you remove the stuff that Google hates then the rankings for the site as a whole improve.
            
            It's a crude tool, though, as inevitably it pushes out some stuff that is well-written and not offensive to Google but has low traffic for other reasons. In an environment where entire niches are being punished, more articles will fall into this category.

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               eugbugposted 9 months agoin reply to this

               Maybe it's time to return to subdomains so we can rank on our own merits rather than that of the niche sites?

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                  Kenna McHughposted 9 months agoin reply to this

                  Eugene,
                  
                  Subdomains, how's that work?

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                     eugbugposted 9 months agoin reply to this

                     I don't understand the technicalities, but I think it's as though we have sub-websites off the main Hubpages domain so Google sees them as though they were separate websites and ranks them as such. But that was implemented before the network sites were introduced. Maybe we could have subdomains off the network sites?

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                        Kenna McHughposted 9 months agoin reply to this

                        I see. I doubt HP would move forward with that. I was thinking it was something writers could do on their own.

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                           PaulGoodman67posted 9 months agoin reply to this

                           For sure, splitting the HP site into subdomains was adopted to try and solve the catastrophe caused by Panda. It didn't work, though.
                           
                           It's not really an area I know a great deal about. However, I believe there were good reasons to divide the site into niches according to the subject matter. It relates to how Google crawls sites and interprets them.
                           
                           We may see some sort of big change happen, though, if things don't improve. Editing articles to improve them doesn't seem to be enough to please the Big G.

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                        theraggededgeposted 9 months agoin reply to this

                        We did. For example, mine was http://theraggededge.hubpages.com/... followed by the article title. It didn't work very well as hp had suffered the massive google-slap.

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                           JerryFisherposted 9 months agoin reply to this

                           If you take a look at Arena's other publications other than Hubpages on Semrush such as Sports Illustrated and The Street - they're all doing fine and have never suffered from a Google bash. Maybe we're too far down for them to give a damn anymore?

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                              theraggededgeposted 9 months agoin reply to this

                              It was only the sites that Google deemed to be content farms. There were a lot of them about and HP only survived by the skin of its teeth.

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                           DrMark1961posted 8 months agoin reply to this

                           Mine was working well.

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                              PaulGoodman67posted 8 months agoin reply to this

                              I think there were a number of reasons why subdomains were an unsustainable approach.
                              
                              The introduction of subdomains was primarily an attempt by HP to get around Google assessing entire websites (introduced with the Panda update).
                              
                              Subdomains attempted to keep authors only responsible for their own work, meaning that the vast amounts of spam and scammy stuff on other parts of the site could be ignored.
                              
                              Looking back, I think the subdomains approach was destined to fail, mainly because Google was intent on pressuring websites to clean up their act regarding spam and scams.
                              
                              There were other practical problems too. Perhaps the biggest destabilizing factor for subdomains was Amazon hubs. It gave me a lot of trouble, as back then most of my earnings (and presumably HP's) came from Amazon.
                              
                              You seem to stay away from Amazon hubs, Dr Mark, which likely helped your subdomain performance and views.
                              
                              What also changed, though, as I understand it, was how Google crawled sites. It necessitated a topic-orientated structure and the introduction of the niched network sites.

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   Solarasposted 9 months ago

   HP has been bled to support the debt and the flagship sites  too many ads, all the efforts go into cheap "news" articles. The sites are getting 8 of them a day while articles of value are tossed off to discover.
   
   What needs to happen is subdomains by topic. For instance  Cats.Pethelpful, Dogs.Pethelpful.com. etc

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      Shesabutterflyposted 9 months agoin reply to this

      I wonder what their thought process was behind cranking out all these new dog guides? Maybe they realize "news" is not the best use of their time, but are still trying to bring in daily fresh/new articles?
      
      It would be nice if they utilized more of the experts on Pethelpful though instead of using staff. Thesprucepets already has more detailed guides on most if not all these dogs. It's going to be hard to out compete them when their pages look better (ads are only in the margins), more detailed information (with the help of graphs, charts, toc), and are written by people who are professionals in the field or fact checked by them vs some of HP's bioless staff. They have already proved and taken over Pethelpful as the biggest competition in a lot of aspects. I think we need more to set us apart. Maybe subdomains could be a step in the right direction.
      
      Most niche sites are too broad. They would need more than a handful of subdomains. How far would we need to break down in order to try and see if that would be helpful at this point? Would it be cost effective?

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         Solarasposted 9 months agoin reply to this

         Spruce is broken down into subdomains, pets and then the species.  Those new guide to breeds are so basic, I don't know what they are thinking, other than they can replace the writers here and their trailing commissions.
         
         Regarding loss of pageviews, the phone call is coming from inside the house.  Folks with strange bios and no last name are cannibalizing my views here with articles of almost the same name and newness being their advantage. .

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            Shesabutterflyposted 9 months agoin reply to this

            That is very disheartening to hear. I'm sorry you're being affected by this. I had no idea that was happening. Sounds like they are trying to push out "freshness" at the cost of genuine writers. That's not the kind of fix the niches need.

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         Kierstin Gunsbergposted 9 months agoin reply to this

         I don’t think their “staff” are real writers, I suspect they’re AI. I don’t really contribute here at all anymore because I’m freelancing for print/local publications now as I make a career pivot, but I approached HP about writing these “news” articles and they said there were no openings. Which… I get, but with the amount of “news” they push out vs. the number of staff they employ, it’s safe to assume that a majority of that content is AI generated.

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            Shesabutterflyposted 9 months agoin reply to this

            I honestly do not think I'd be able to tell the difference. The "news" is shallow and the dog guides are very basic, but whether that's the product of AI or because they are pushing out so many (using various authors) is hard for me to tell. Most of the guides do contain a sources section though, so I think it's more likely than not staff/editor/author created.
            
            Angel did reply to a thread a few weeks back (when SI was caught with AI) in regards to AI and HP's guidelines. "We do not host any content created or managed by AdVon on HubPages sites. We want to ensure that our network sites are a space for high-quality, authentic content that abides by our editorial guidelines, which means that we do our best to reject any content we suspect to be generated by AI."
            
            https://hubpages.com/community/forum/35 … llustrated

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               eugbugposted 9 months agoin reply to this

               The AI entities such as ChatGPT don't have any "memory". So they can't or won't tell us either whether they wrote the content.

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                  PaulGoodman67posted 9 months agoin reply to this

                  I tend to agree with Cholee. I don't see it as "safe to assume" AI content. I have an open mind and would be interested to see the evidence but I've not seen it so far.
                  
                  I'm also not convinced that the news sections really have much effect on our articles, the vast majority of which are encountered by readers via the search engines.
                  
                  However, I do think that there is a wider danger that as TAG trawls around for new ideas to make money and HP continues to sink, we eventually become seen as old news.
                  
                  That worries me more than additional news articles and new dog websites by TAG.

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   Shesabutterflyposted 9 months ago

   My highest view article has lost half it's traffic in the last two weeks. It is not looking good. Usually it is doing better this time of year, not worse.
   
   I've had so many articles moved back the last few years, but Delishably seems to have a lower threshold than most. I have articles that see less than 10 views in 30 days and have under 1k in 10+ years still hanging around Delishably, when articles with higher views have been sent back from other niche sites. Maybe I missed their 30 days of 0 views for consecutive months.

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      PaulGoodman67posted 9 months agoin reply to this

      I've been reaching new lows in December, breaking personal records by getting lower traffic than when I first started.
      
      Heaven knows what January and 2024 hold for us. While I'm earning far less than I was a couple of years ago, the money is still useful.
      
      But it's dwindling.

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   Sherry Hewinsposted 9 months ago

   I am losing the will to continue. It's been a great ride, but when I view my articles on the network sites I can certainly see why people click away. I wouldn't battle my way through the ads to read them either.

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   ChitrangadaSharanposted 9 months ago

   It’s the same story with my articles too—Less views, less earnings!
   Even the high performing articles have lost significant views.
   I believe, the countless number of Ads are doing all the damage.
   No motivation to write something new.

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      MsDoraposted 9 months agoin reply to this

      I feel the same way, Chitrangada, but I'm hoping that the site owners will decide on some new technique to save the day. Happy New Year to all of us!

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   phillippeengelposted 9 months ago

   You're right on point. Whether something is generated by AI or a human hand, the ultimate test is its usefulness. In fact, that's the lens I always try to look through – is this information helpful, engaging, or adding value in some way?

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      PaulGoodman67posted 9 months agoin reply to this

      I agree that's a good approach when it comes to writing for a site like HP.
      
      However, I believe that the economics can't be forgotten when it comes to AI. When the industrial revolution happened, handmade clothes still had many advantages over machine-made. However, people essentially stopped buying handmade clothing because the factory-produced versions were much cheaper.
      
      Even in cases where the AI version of something is slightly inferior to the human, it may still win out because it costs little or no money.

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         Solarasposted 9 months agoin reply to this

         I think you are right on point there. Why share revenue indefinitely. Why not employ humans or ai to generate content with no future revenue sharing. Current management may view us as leaches,  dragging away their rightful share, when they can rewrite our articles and make them their own. Newer content is getting more views, so our content is moved to discover. Rinse repeat.

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            PaulGoodman67posted 9 months agoin reply to this

            I think the primary threat to a site like this comes from the AI bots at Google and Bing writing their own answers for free.
            
            I don't think companies like HP have much control over that.
            
            The big problem with AI currently is that the content it generates can be unreliable/untrustworthy. If that issue could be solved, I can't see how a site like this would be able to stay afloat.

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               eugbugposted 9 months agoin reply to this

               Another thing that AI can't do is produce a series of photos for a guide. It might use public domain images, but I don't see how it could create customised photos or infographics like I have to produce to explain a procedure. Although Wikihow come up with illustrations for their guides. They've been doing that for years, before AI was a thing. Maybe they have a team of illustrators who are quick on the draw.

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                  Solarasposted 9 months agoin reply to this

                  AI can produce images, instantaneously. You tell it what you want and it gathers data from thousands of existing images to generate things like a purple zebra with blue wings, if that is what you asked for.

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                     eugbugposted 9 months agoin reply to this

                     But the results produced by OpenAI's DALLE 2 are a lot less than impressive. I use them solely for funny tweets. For instance I just asked it now to draw a diagram of an air filter being removed from a lawn mower and this is what I got, which is a lot more impressionist than accurate. The images remind me of the sort of concoctions our mind makes in dreams. Hopefully it'll take some time before it gets more capable, but for the moment I guess it'll just use generic public domain images in articles.
                     
                     In the diagram below, I guess it's aware of that fact that air filters are sometimes foamy and the air filter housing sort of looks like the bag off a mower. I don't know where the annotation comes from. Text on images is usually garbage.
                     
                     
                     
                     

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                  theraggededgeposted 9 months agoin reply to this

                  Surely you would just get it to produce the first one using detailed instructions and then tell it what slight changes to make to it to show a process?

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                     eugbugposted 9 months agoin reply to this

                     Maybe, I'm not sure. I'll have to do some reading up on the subject.

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                  PaulGoodman67posted 9 months agoin reply to this

                  If you judge AI for what it can do at the moment, then it's got some serious issues. However, I try to consider how things are moving and what AI's likely able to do in 18 months or two years.
                  
                  That's relevant as it dictates which direction I go in.
                  
                  Sometimes I feel like people discuss AI as if it's a static thing when it's really not.
                  
                  Bill Gates makes a convincing argument that AI will be widely used throughout societies for all sorts of things within a couple of years.
                  
                  When the internet came along, it took years for high-speed cables to be laid and people to buy computers and learn how to use them. The infrastructure is already essentially in place for AI.
                  
                  Once it becomes widely used, the pace of advancement will accelerate even more, as more money and research are invested.
                  
                  I worked in libraries and I remember some of the arguments that were used to justify keeping reference book sections. For instance, it was argued that Wikipedia wasn't always accurate so people would always need librarians and reference books. That idea turned out not to be mistaken, of course, and we got rid of reference sections a few years later.
                  
                  I expect that the flaws in AI will be tackled and it will happen much quicker than many expect.

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                     Titiaposted 9 months agoin reply to this

                     I'm afraid you're right.

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   eugbugposted 9 months ago

   Traffic seems to be increasing a bit this week after the Christmas.

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      Kenna McHughposted 9 months agoin reply to this

      Same here; I just noticed that.

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      PaulGoodman67posted 9 months agoin reply to this

      Yes. I hope it's algorithmic and not just seasonal.
      
      It's important to remember that Xmas/New Year is a very brief holiday in the US compared to the UK (and presumably Ireland).
      
      In England, the country almost shuts down completely for a week or two around Christmas.
      
      In the US (where most of our traffic comes from), it's fleeting for most people. Some people take a bunch of time off but most go straight back to work.

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         Kenna McHughposted 9 months agoin reply to this

         Paul, you are funny. Let's take a rise for a rise.

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            PaulGoodman67posted 9 months agoin reply to this

            The underlying cause is a big deal. It affects my behavior/life.
            
            For instance, if it's just seasonal, there's no point writing again. If things improved with Google, it might be different.
            
            Of course, there's nowhere near enough info right now to draw any conclusions.

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               Kenna McHughposted 9 months agoin reply to this

               Paul, it's a crapshoot. But I am enjoying it.

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                  PaulGoodman67posted 9 months agoin reply to this

                  For me, it's a sad situation, another writing for income site that appears to be going down the drain.
                  
                  I would describe the overall situation as "outside of our control," rather than a crapshoot.

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                     Kenna McHughposted 9 months agoin reply to this

                     I hear you!

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      PaulGoodman67posted 9 months agoin reply to this

      There’s a new Google update just kicked in. I suspect that’s the cause of the current (slight) traffic rise.

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   eugbugposted 9 months ago

   That traffic increase as usual was short lived, it's gone down again.

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